Election Results and #LockTheClock

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Transcript

Sarah [00:00:00] I mean, who knew me and Marco Rubio would be on the same side? This is a good bipartisan issue. It's like Sheldon Whitehouse, but Marco Rubio is leading the charge. It's called the Sunshine Protection Act. It makes daylight saving time permanent in  all of the U.S. and more importantly, it locks the clock hashtag. That's the hashtag for the legislation. Lock the clock. I think this is where we should start, y'all. We can work it out after this, but let's just stop changing the clock. 

[00:00:33] This is Sarah Stewart Holland. 

Beth [00:00:34] And this is Beth Silvers. 

Sarah [00:00:36] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.

Beth [00:00:52] Hello, everyone, we are so happy that you're joining us for a new episode of Pantsuit Politics today, we're going to talk about election results across the country from Tuesday's elections. Then we are going to talk about perhaps the most important issue facing our country this weekend, and that is falling back to Standard Time from daylight saving time. Outside of politics, we will confront another top-of-mind controversy, which is when and how do we start shifting into holiday mode? And speaking of the holidays, we would love to see your faces soon for our first annual holiday huddle. 

Sarah [00:01:22] You know, we were supposed to get together in Texas in person. COVID squashed our plans. So this is our chance to see each other over Zoom. See your faces. Listen, we'll get to interact and see your faces even more, probably through this venue, this online venue. Gonna talk about the stress of getting together over the holidays. We're going to talk about how to handle the latest conservative outrage, how to respond, how to exit gracefully, how to just handle the holidays. That's what we're going to,  we're going to tackle. We're really excited. It's going to be November 18th at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. And if that time isn't convenient for you, your ticket allows you to watch the show for up to seven days after the event is over, so get your tickets. Get your questions ready. Bring us your tired, your dramatic, your family controversies and we'll have a great time. The link to get registered is in the show notes. 

Beth [00:02:25] There were lots of interesting results from Tuesday's elections, but all eyes have really been on Virginia and New Jersey, as you, I'm sure know by now in Virginia, the Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin, won by just over 79000 votes, a two and a half percent margin. I would like to say before we talk more about these two races that Virginia had a very historic lieutenant governor's race. Hala Ayala, who we have met and think very highly of Democrat, ran against Republican Winsome Sears, both women, which meant that either way, we were going to have Virginia's first woman lieutenant governor. Republican Winsome Sears won that race. She is in addition to being the first woman lieutenant governor of Virginia, the first woman of color to win statewide office in Virginia. She is a former marine and a Jamaican immigrant. She was very active with the Trump campaign. That's how her electoral profile was really built for this race. Another interesting note about this race is that Hala Ayala, the Democrat, outperformed Terry McAuliffe by about 13000 votes. So it's just interesting to see those numbers vary a little bit- top of the ticket versus the lieutenant governor's race.

Sarah [00:03:37] Yeah. Interesting, but not surprising. Interesting, but not surprising that she was a more exciting candidate than she outperformed McAuliffe. And look, that was true all over the country. There were all kinds of firsts. Boston got its first female elected mayor, first person of color, elected mayor. No matter who won, they were going to make history. Cincinnati, near where you live, got its first Asian-American mayor. Dearborn, Michigan, got its first Arab-American mayor and first Muslim mayor. There were so many candidates across the country, actually Democratic candidates. Now they were in cities that leaned Democratic but really breaking barriers and getting people excited. And I was going to put a pin in that because I'm going to come back to it. 

Beth [00:04:18] The other race that has gotten a ton of attention is that in New Jersey, the Democratic governor, Murphy had a much tighter race than you would typically expect based on New Jersey's voting records and demographics. So Governor Murphy looks to be the winner of that race. One point four percent is the margin he won by thirty-five thousand seven hundred eighteen votes. The Republican candidate, as we're recording, has not yet conceded. I imagine this will be recounted. But outlets are calling it that murphy has survived this election. 

Sarah [00:04:50] Well, you know, I worked for Senator Bob Menendez from New Jersey, so I like to think I'm semi acquainted with the political landscape of New Jersey, and it actually doesn't surprise me. I mean, listen, Chris Christie came from New Jersey. They're not consistently democratic in the way other states from that area of the country are. Listen, in my experience, the people of New Jersey are they're independent, borderline belligerent. I love you. I love you all people from New Jersey. So I think that there was some real backlash against the strong COVID mandates coming from Governor Murphy. I think you saw that in the stronger-than-expected turnout from the Republican candidate. So I mean, it's surprising in that it wasn't prognosticated to go this way, but I don't think surprising overall and in the history of New Jersey. 

Beth [00:05:38] I don't think that we should use presidential elections as the measuring stick for how we evaluate these races. I mean, you have throughout New England, some Republican governors states that almost always go blue come presidential time make very different choices in their statewide offices, and often those governors end up being quite popular. And so I think the yardsticks that are being applied here are kind of silly because the stories that are being written are all, what does this mean about Joe Biden? That's the interesting narrative for national outlets to write about. And I just think it's not an entirely helpful or accurate framework. 

Sarah [00:06:20] Now, I do think our own Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, takes some lessons from this New Jersey race and does not underestimate the frustration and the anger coming off the COVID mandates. We have much less strict mandates than New Jersey, but I think there's still going to be a lot of anger and frustration aimed his way due to COVID. I think probably all governors are looking at this races and taking that in. What's interesting about Virginia, and that's not what you're doing, right? You're not looking at somebody who was putting forth COVID mandates. Terry McAuliffe wasn't the incumbent. He had served previously, which I think was the problem. I think you're going to have a tough time in America. I don't really care what state you're in when you have an institutional candidate coming up against an outsider. It's just it's a tough one. Look, Barack Obama was a newcomer. Donald Trump was a newcomer and Glenn Youngkin was a newcomer. He not run for office before. He doesn't have a lot of experience versus Terry McAuliffe, who'd been governor already and who served in all kinds of capacities. You know, is tied closely to the Clintons, all these, you know, things that I don't. For me, personally, individually, you know, I can see the complexity and they're not all negative marks for me, but that's not how they're perceived in, you know, the wider voting establishment and I think there were other candidates in that Democratic primary, one of which we had on this show who would have had a much easier time battling Glenn Youngkin over this, you know, culture war, particularly surrounding the school systems. I mean, Jennifer Carroll Foy has young children, you know, like she's a mother with these issues in front of her every day. And I think it would have been a lot harder to paint her as out of touch on these parenting slash education slash school board issues. 

Beth [00:08:14] Yeah, I think Terry McAuliffe brought a lot of baggage to this race, that was probably unhelpful. I think this race is super complicated. I don't live in Virginia. I want to approach it with a lot of humility. I said on our Nightly Nuance about this topic that I think Glenn Youngkin ran to win, that he ran a very disciplined, focused, well-funded campaign and how you campaign makes a big difference in what's going on. I think on this school piece, That is something that we're going to have to figure out how to have a better conversation about across the United States. My big request right now is anyone in your life who is going on about schools and critical race theory, just invite them to come get involved in something with you in the school system. There are so many things to be concerned about in the school system right now, and I promise that the schools being too woke is not the issue, especially in your local community. If you just walk into the school system like, like, say, I love your passion for the school system. Let's go get involved in some meaningful way and get some information about what the issues are here. That said, I think it is 100 percent correct when commentators say Democrats cannot just be dismissive of these concerns. The conversation has to go somewhere else. 

[00:09:30] Where I get a little bit lost in thinking about everything being discussed and written about these races is I feel like people are trying to nail down either that more progressive candidates would perform better than the McAuliffe's of the world because they would excite the Democratic base because they would close the enthusiasm gap with Republicans, because they would incentivize more people to come out and vote, or that the lesson is actually we need really moderate candidates because Abigail Spanberger is quoted in The New York Times today as saying people didn't elect Joe Biden to be FDR. They elected Joe Biden to stabilize things, return things to normal and to not be Donald Trump. And I think everyone I would personally love to know the answer to that question to say there is one answer to that question for the whole country, and this is what it is. And I think the problem is there isn't one answer to that question. Not even one answer to that question in Virginia. Best I can tell. I think there are probably places where Jennifer Carroll Foy would have dramatically outperformed Terry McAuliffe and places where she would have dramatically underperformed Terry McAuliffe. We're just we're not all experiencing the pressures of school fighting inflation, labor shortage, great resignation, all of the factors that influence us extremely personally right now, we're just not experiencing them in the same way. And so I don't think there is a neat conclusion to be drawn here, but the pull to draw that any conclusion is so strong. 

Sarah [00:11:05] Well, I voted for Joe Biden to be the FDR, for sure. I don't know who exactly she's talking about. I mean, I know that voter she's talking about, and that's the thing. The I think you're exactly right. Who are we to? It depends, right? Who are we talking about and where are we talking about? But here's what I do think the Universal is. Why the school board issues are so hot is because public school is a place in which people felt an enormous amount of powerlessness last year, I felt an enormous amount of powerlessness. Now, whether they channel the anxiety surrounding that powerlessness into fights about masks and the fact that either pro or against into vaccines, either pro or against into critical race theory, either pro or against it doesn't matter. The undercurrent to me is pretty obvious. People felt powerless. And so look, it is a bigger lift every time to feel that powerlessness and meet it and harness it with hope and change than it is with fear and hate. 

[00:12:16] That's a harder, bigger lift. You've got to have the right candidate. You have to have a really, really tight campaign. You've got to have a lot of money and you've got to have a lot of volunteers. And so I think that that even if you even if you, you know, you figured it out and there is one answer everywhere, every candidate is not going to be able to harness that in the right way. And I think that's what's so hard. And like you said, like sometimes the harnessing is going to come from progressive politics. Sometimes the harnessing is going to come from moderate politics. And I think trying to extrapolate one answer for everything is how you got Terry McAuliffe, because it's easy to look at Joe Biden and think, Well, that's that it worked. We need to nominate old guard. Previous experience moderate men to soothe the electorate and tell them will go back to normal, I mean, on paper, Terry McAuliffe makes sense if you're thinking about things that way, if you're taking lessons from the 2020 election. But as this election show, just because it works on paper, just because it sounds good in an op-ed or in a coming out of a pundit's mouth, doesn't mean it's always true. 

Beth [00:13:26] I've been part of a process that my church recently where we've been discussing what we want to do with our worship services since everything has been so shaken by COVID. It's been a really interesting and great process, I've learned a lot. It has really deepened my appreciation for my church in the way they lead through tough conversations and tough issues. And the conversation about what to do with these services has been, in so many ways, such a microcosm of all of the forces that influence elections. I generational differences kind of people who have conflict between what they think the majority wants and what their personal opinions are, comfort versus the desire to do something a little bolder. I mean, just like all of the factors that influence every conversation you have about politics have been present in these discussions. And I was saying last night to one of my pastors, you know, watching this process has been so instructive for me as a person who thinks about politics and elections all the time, because here we have a group of people who all know each other like each other, love each other, are committed to being in one space together that none of us have to be in are approaching this in good faith. We're all doing the same homework to prepare for these meetings. No one has any ill motive whatsoever. And it is still emotionally brutal to try to make a decision. Absolutely brutal. 

[00:14:58] And so no wonder we're in this situation what we're talking about public school. And no wonder we're in these kinds of situations, we're talking about our economy and recovering from COVID and vaccines and all the things. And that is why I think just to pick up on our last conversation about elections, all of the punditry right now is falling so flat for me because it isn't speaking to how even when everybody is trying our very best in these community arenas, it is just dire right now. And I don't want to talk about marketing messages as much as I want to talk about that relational component of trying to get people on the same page to dig us out of the situation we've been in for the past 18 months. And I will say that I didn't elect Joe Biden to be the next FDR. I elected him to do that thing because I think that's what Joe Biden is uniquely good at. 

[00:15:53] Joe Biden was not my pick of the Democratic field, but when I voted for him in the general election, which was not a hard decision for me at all, I was thinking like, I'm grateful to have someone who's so good at grief, who's so good at expressing his grief, who's so good at saying the people, I know this is tough and I also believe we're going to get through it. I support a lot of his agenda. I also do kind of want to hear him speak to the American public about what he thinks the priorities need to be right now. What has gone the way he expected it to, what hasn't. And I know that that's not what political advisers would counsel him to do, but it is a felt need that I have. Does that mean that I think to myself, Oh, I'm probably going to really go to the hard right when it comes time to vote for my House members? No, but I get why people are feeling some tension and discomfort because I just think we're in a season of tension and discomfort. 

Sarah [00:16:50] Yeah, I think we're going to stay there and not just because of COVID, but because of the path our politics have been on, where a tight margins of control it's going to go back and forth. Donald Trump had the same experience in his first year in office. And you know, it's easy to get wrapped up in Biden's approval rating, and no one had him as low except for Donald Trump. I just think, well, the next person will, because this is the road we're on now where, you know, when things are intense and precarious, it's impossible because of the structure of our Congress and the tight margins of control and the tiny number of actual seats in play in the House of Representatives and the structure of the United States Senate to get a lot of things done. And then you don't get things done. So people don't think you're doing it, but it's a very intense time. So people kind of want things to get done, but not too much, because then the change makes them uncomfortable. And like, it's just it's a shitstorm like, Oh, it's just where we are in American politics right now. We're not going back to some like incredible level of stability, and not just because there's something wrong with us because globally we're in a real period of transition and a real period of precarity, and that is going to play out in our politics. That is the reality. I wish it was different, but it's not. 

[00:18:01] Doesn't matter who the candidate is. I think that that is just the reality. We're intensely tied, usually through lenses of identity to our partisan politics. And we are fiercely divided across the country. And that means that we're going to have back and forth elections. Really, you know, thin margins of victory, some surprises. Culture wars like I just I don't think that's going to turn on a dime anytime soon. And I don't think it's an I think it's better and healthier to just recognize that and accept it and do what you can to change it on your local level. Look at all those mayoral elections give me an enormous amount of help. Cities are laboratories in real, real ways, and mayors often run for higher offices and they build real skills, both in campaigning and governing. They make good candidates. I mean, that's how we got Pete Buttigieg. You know, I just think like those people who see politics in new ways who, you know, made their names during this time of precarity and conflict, they're going to be a totally different kind of politician, and there's a lot of them out there. When I look at Michelle Wu, when I look at Aftab Pureval, like when I see all those people, they I feel incredible, hope they're not just going to stay in those cities, and the policies they formulate in those cities aren't going to just stay in those cities and you don't have to live in a city to benefit from that. So I think that as often is the case of politics, it's all there. 

Beth [00:19:42] I agree with you that it's all there and it's all going to be there. And I just in the midst of all that crave more processes like the one at my church. As hard as it's been, I want more places where we practice those skills and we work through these things together. I want more processes like my school Districts Ambassadors program, where parents get to go in and learn things about the schools. I just think there is a moment right now for us to dig all the way in to really figuring out what we want society to look like. And I would like to do that work as opposed to spending all of this energy on, like what do people want? As though we aren't people. You know, what do you people think? What works? What can we market in the next election? Let's just be the people and do the things and see where it takes us the next time we go out to vote. 

[00:20:31] Well, this Sunday, November 7th, at two o'clock local time, we are supposed to fall back from daylight saving time to standard time. We're going to talk about why we changed time twice a year. Who does this? Should we keep doing it? That's up next. 

[00:21:01] Sarah, you have spent the better part of the last 18 months telling us that time is a flat circle. And that seems like a fitting introduction and maybe a way to just tell people right out of the gate when we think about daylight saving time, you are against changing the clocks. Is that an accurate summary of your position? 

Sarah [00:21:16] Yeah, it's stupid. It's terrible. Why do we do it? We how we carry supercomputers in our pockets that adjust the time as we move around. Why are we like scrolling our watches back? What's happening? Why are we doing this? Why did we start doing this? It seems incredibly dumb to me. 

Beth [00:21:32] I think that the conversation we're just having about elections is very related to our concept of time because we have talked all of my, you know, I have always thought of time as this really fixed entity, but we've changed this up a lot. Mm hmm. Going back to ancient civilizations, we've made adjustments to timekeeping with seasons. We've always kind of been revolving around the sun, which makes a lot of sense since we actually revolve around the Sun, right? 

Sarah [00:21:58] The Sun is in control. 

Beth [00:22:00] We did not really start attempting to standardize time until railways told us that we needed to do that because city by city we needed to tell people a time to get on and off the train that didn't depend on where the Sun was in that city at that particular moment. We didn't have our current time zones in the United States until 1918. 

[00:22:17] There are all of these like newspaper articles about Daylight Saving Time that say that Ben Franklin is responsible for it. Ben Franklin has nothing to do with it. He made a joke about Paris and candles. He was not talking about clocks at all. This really came from a New Zealand entomologist, George Hudson, who wanted a two-hour shift so that he would have more time to hunt bugs in the summer. And Canada in 1908 was the first place in modern times to really try out a version of Daylight Saving Time to save energy. The world wars are what made it more standard for us because during the war, as President Roosevelt actually called it wartime, the idea was Let's have more daylight so that we save fuel so that we can spend that fuel on warfighting instead of on lighting our homes in the places that were in. 

[00:23:03] So we've messed with the time a lot in the United States, we've changed the dates for daylight saving time. We added a month as recently as 2005, and I think we just learned over and over again that this is dumb and needs to be rethought. 

Sarah [00:23:15] Well, I just want to clarify the language a little bit because this is where I was confused when I spoke with my friend Leslie, who's very, very passionate about this topic. She helped us with this research. She came on the Nightly Nuance. Everybody should check it out. So it's not daylight saving time, that is the problem. It's not a problem to set the time so that we have more hours of daylight to set the clock so they have more hours of daylight. The problem is the switching back and forth between daylight saving time and Standard Time. We, you know, at Leslie's point is like wherever you live, what works best for you, but based on sort of your your latitude around the globe, go with it. Be happy. Be best. But like, don't stop changing it. It's the changing that's so dangerous. Oh my god, we had a patron who works in the health care industry and the talk about the people who work night shifts and what they have to do when we set our clocks back, which is, oh by the way, work an additional hour and then all the medical records and what they have to do it. Just what are we doing this to ourselves? Why are we making ourselves miserable? It's crazy. There's like increased heart attack, increased stroke people have car wrecks like people get killed because we change our clocks twice a year. We have got to stop this. 

Beth [00:24:27] So I have some agreement and some disagreement with you. Almost everyone in the health care profession who's written about this has said daylight saving time is bad that it messes with not it's not just the switch, it is that actual daylight saving time causes a fluctuation in our circadian rhythms that is not good for our sleep. I think it is totally fair to say, depending on where you are in the world, your connection to the Sun is different and how you look at that connection to the Sun is different. And I think just as I can because we know we have people listening outside the United States, it would be good to acknowledge this is not just an American problem and not everywhere in America has this problem. Most states utilize daylight saving time, but Hawaii, Arizona, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands do not. 

Sarah [00:25:16] But not Indiana, but not Indiana. They had a reputation for that for a long time, but they switched. 

Beth [00:25:22] Most of Europe uses daylight saving time. The public overwhelmingly was surveyed and wants to stop doing that. And it was supposed to stop this year. But the Council of the European Union wants a detailed impact assessment before proceeding with that, so they're still waiting. Most of Canada and Mexico does this parts of Asia. And then there is a different time-saving measure that happens in Australia. Parts of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and South America around the southern hemisphere summer. There's this graphic of how Australia does this that is bananas, because it's carved up throughout Australia in terms of who does what. It looks very confusing to someone who does not live there. And then a lot of the rest of the world used to change the clocks, but stopped doing it. Some have permanent daylight saving time and some have permanent standard time. But they have at least made the decision. And that seems to be what unites everyone that most, like the vast majority of people, are just against changing the clock. Don't really care whether it's permanent daylight saving or permanent standard. Just let's stop messing with it. 

Sarah [00:26:27] I mean, listen, I'm basically a vampire. I am very pale. I'm fine with Standard Time. I like the dark. I really do think that our bodies should flow with the Sun. That makes the most sense to me. I think electricity probably caused all kinds of problems we don't even think about. I believe all that and also I know people like we have to go up against the recreation lobby and all these people who make more money when there's more daytime hours. So like, let's start small. Let's just stop. Let's hashtag there's a campaign now we're gonna tell you about it. Hashtag lock the clock. Let's just pick. I don't even care what you pick, but let's just pick and stop the shifting, which is not only dumb but dangerous. 

Beth [00:27:07] And I think that is a good entry point into saying the data tells us that whatever daylight saving time and the shifts in time was supposed to do positively for us, it doesn't do that. There is this whole kind of there is a narrative out there that daylight saving time benefits farmers. It's actually the opposite. Farmers very much do not like daylight saving time as a whole. Daylight saving time is a moneymaker. There's a professor named Michael Downing. He is deceased now, but he wrote a book called Spring Forward The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time, and he explained in it that the Chamber of Commerce is one of the biggest backers of daylight saving time. Because if you give workers an extra hour of daylight after they leave their jobs, they will shop the candy industry benefits from longer. Trick or treating on Halloween. The golf industry, when they lobbied for an extra month of daylight saving time, said that that extra month alone was worth about $200 million in greens fees and club purchases. So there is just an unbelievable amount of money attached to doing this. But on the other side, as you were saying, Sarah, there are increased heart attacks. There are increased car accidents. Data over time shows us that we actually use more energy because of daylight saving time, because we're starting our mornings in the dark. And all of those energy arguments seem so dated in a world where, yeah, like everything runs on electricity, where we're using electricity constantly. 

Sarah [00:28:38] And we all have LED light bulbs. What does that even mean anymore? Come on, guys, let's get over this. Yeah. The money maker is not good enough for me. The energy savings, I don't even believe. Now I do understand there are concerns about kids going to school in the dark. There's like evidence that kids get hit by cars. They're not seen in the dark. I don't want kids to go to school in the dark. So here's just I'm gonna Spitball here, just gonna do a little  a quick brainstorming What if we change the time kids go to school? Because sending teenagers to school that early is ludicrous. I've been lobbying my school system to change for literal years. It is against everything we know about teenagers’ circadian rhythms like for schools that are supposedly concerned about testing and scores and grades and kids succeeding academically, sending them to school that early in the morning is outrageous. I think what they're really concerned about is sports, in my personal opinion. There is also an argument that the teenagers come home early and help care for younger siblings, which I understand. I mean, I don't listen if we're just rethinking things. Here's just a crazy idea, Beth, what if the school day was the same time as the workday? I'm just I'm just trying to like, you know, really whiteboard it. What do you think? 

Beth [00:29:49] I think that all of these timing questions demonstrate how we hold with like clenched fists around our concept of what things should be like, that we should eat lunch at noon, that school should start by eight or whatever. You know, the school day can't be the same as the workday because not everybody has the same workday. Should we have different workdays for different people? Sure. Should workplaces be more flexible with people who have kids in school? That might also be a way to accomplish this right where we let workers have a little bit more power over what their working hours are to align with what the school is doing. We could do all of this differently. I would love and I know that I'm going to be out here alone on this, and that's OK. I would love for us to all get behind Coordinated Universal Time, where everybody in the world uses the same time that our computers use this UTC so that we're not scheduling meetings by saying Hello, everyone would. 9:00 Central, 10:00 Eastern whatever Pacific work for you. You know, instead, we're just saying we're going to do this at two o'clock and then locally two o'clock means whatever it means. And so your workday or your school day start based on your relationship with the Sun again instead of the number on the actual clock. That is screwy, right? That messes with your brain because 8:00 PM means something to each of us, and I get that we would have to really detach from that. But I think we could rethink just to be aligned with your point on the school day and when when we get kids on the bus, I think we should rethink a lot of things based on what we know about the importance of sleep. What's actually good for our health? What data shows us about emergency rooms and car accidents? And what better time to do that when everything is a mess? Now I know I am like, everything's a mess, so let's change it all, and a whole lot of people are like, Everything's a mess. Give me the comfort. And I think that's a tension that we're just circling around in every space. 

Sarah [00:31:57] I mean, this universal thing, though here is my concern. It's not that 8 PM means something to me, it's that it has to mean something to me in order for me to organize my day. And so if I'm using Universal Time, first of all, I would assume if we're following the Sun, the school day start time would have to shift over the course of the year, which I think would be if we know people miss appointments and are late to school because we're changing the clock once a year. What if we're changing it every month? Like I think that would be very hard for people. Oh, by the way, in the month of October now, school starts at 3:15. It's just those time if they mean something because they help us know like, OK, well, that's about when lunchtime is. OK. That's about when afternoon, OK? And so if those numbers are constantly shifting, I think that would be. I can't ever keep up with what day of the week it is, as we all know. So like keeping up with where, what number we're on in relationship to the Sun, what time everything is. That seems like a massive mental lift to me. 

Beth [00:33:02] I don't think it would have to be that way, though. I think it could be that way. But I don't think it would have to be that way because right now we keep the school day fixed. Even though the sun changes, the daylight saving time hurts us more with that school day start than it helps us. So what I am advocating for is for a single time throughout the world, not different time zones, and for us to adjust what those numbers mean on the clock to us based on our relationship with the Sun in that location. I think the time zones are confusing and do not match the way society works right now. 

Sarah [00:33:39] OK, but you have you have somewhere in the world. They're doing that. Yes, China does that. They have geographic time zones, but they have one standard time. So we need to ask the Chinese how they feel about this. I was my mind was blown when a patron told me that China only had one time zone. It's a huge country, 

Beth [00:33:54] it's a huge country and there's enormous efficiency, I think, to be gained when you just have the one time zone. Now, I do not want to pattern our work styles after the Chinese like time means a lot of things, right? And I don't want this to mean that that this becomes a tool of like, let's just get more labor from everybody. I would just like it to be easier to schedule a meeting or to take a flight where you're crossing time zones. 

Sarah [00:34:17] Now, it seems like we could do a transition where we just start saying instead of Eastern Standard, Central Standard, you do your time zone and Standard Time, right? So everybody could everybody could orient around. That could be a good transition into what you're talking about. Sounds like. 

Beth [00:34:33] We would probably need a lot of transition because I don't think many people are ready to rethink what makes my brain hurt them. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. There is a U.S. political aspect of this that's worth talking about, which is that currently states have the ability to not be part of daylight saving time at all. But if they are part of daylight saving time, they've got to follow the federal decision about what months involve daylight saving time. And states cannot elect permanent daylight saving time and implement it without federal permission. And so we have some bipartisan legislation that's been proposed to fix that. As you are saying, Sarah, you want to talk about the hashtag again. 

Sarah [00:35:16] I mean, who knew me and Marco Rubio would be on the same side? This is a good bipartisan issue. It's like Sheldon Whitehouse, but Marco Rubio is leading the charge. It's called the Sunshine Protection Act. It makes daylight saving time permanent in all of the U.S. and more importantly, it locks the clock. Hashtag. That's the hashtag for the legislation. Lock the clock. I think this is where we should start, y'all. We can work it out after this, but let's just stop changing the clock. Call your senators say I support the Sunshine Protection Act. Get on social media. Let's rev it up again. #LockTheClock. 

Beth [00:35:51] I do not want permanent daylight saving time. I am very ready to fall back. I did not like waking up and it being dark for so long in the morning. But I would like us to stop changing the time. So I have. I have a little disagreement with you, but fundamentally I am for the objective of let's not keep doing. 

Sarah [00:36:09] Yeah, I think that's the compromise. Like this is where ever nobody gets what they want. Let's just compromise at stopping changing the clock. That's what we're going to start. We're going to start there and then we will work our way forward from that point. 

Beth [00:36:31] Moving into another extremely controversial issue that is related to the time. Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. When do you believe, Sarah, that it is appropriate to fire up All I want for Christmas is You?

Sarah [00:36:43] Not surprisingly, I have a very complex approach to this. It's a tiered system. November 1st, I start decorating. for one reason and one reason only. It's a lot of work and I need time to do it for a long time I was like, very aggressive. We don't do anything until after Thanksgiving Day and then especially when we moved to Paducah and I had a bigger house and several rooms. And yes, I do use more than One Tree. And I love it, and it brings me a lot of joy. And then I would spend like three days, four days that I had between Thanksgiving and December 1st, killing myself to get everything up. And I thought, Why am I doing this? I'm not going to do this anymore. This is outrageous, especially when I started working more and more. It was one thing when I was like home with a toddler. But now that I work full-time hours, I have time like. And so especially I have a particular. I have a 12 foot tree, which is a real beast to put up, and I'm not doing it for 25 days. I'm not doing all that work for 25 days. So I put that tree up first, starting after Halloween. It stays up through Advent, so I get lots of good time with it makes it worth the effort. But like the day after Halloween, I took all my Halloween down. I have all my boxes in the different rooms they're going to go in. I've got some of the decorations up. So starting after Halloween through the month of November, I decorate sort of like a slow when I have time. And then I will say several years ago I was like, Well, if I'm decorating, I can listen to Christmas music, and then I was a little bit worn out on it. So I do still maintain the post-Thanksgiving rule for All I Want for Christmas is You. So I have a sort of a tiered rollout if you will. 

Beth [00:38:20] I'm experiencing a lot of household burnout right now, so I did not decorate it all for Halloween, which is very unusual for me. I just told myself, I'm not doing it this year. We will put some pumpkins on the porch. Kids can paint the pumpkins if they would like to do that, but I am not decorating for Halloween. Jane and Ellen really did not appreciate this one little bit, but I told them this is just where mommy is right now. I'm trying to give Thanksgiving its due this year. I feel like Thanksgiving is going to bring me out of my rut because I love to cook the Thanksgiving meal, but I promise myself I am not hosting anything until Thanksgiving. I'm giving myself a hosting break. I think I've burned myself out on hosting as well. I think Thanksgiving is going to bring me back, so I have a plan for my Thanksgiving table that I think is going to be lovely. I am really, really leaning in to Thanksgiving this year as like the take Beth out of her household funk savior. And then I'm going to get into Christmas in December, and I will see how much I feel like decorating for Christmas and wrapping gifts and all of the things because I'm just right now. All of that sounds very overwhelming to me, and I just want to enjoy the holiday more. I think I also have like a little bit of panic that we're going to be back in normal holiday mode, meaning drive to all these different functions across the state of Kentucky. Have your calendar be packed with things. Feel the pressure, and I really loved the quiet of the holidays last year, I know that that wasn't true for everybody and I want to leave lots of space for that. But it was it was true for me that I that I really enjoyed having quieter, easier holidays. And so I think I've got a little bit of like preemptive burnout because I anticipate that. 

Sarah [00:40:01] Well, I'm not going to talk about that because I think that's a topic that is perfectly suited for our holiday huddle. I've been thinking a lot about the conflicts come coming conflict between the people that are ready to rev back up and the people that are ready to stay chill. So put a pin in that for the holiday huddle because I think that's where a lot of people are at. You know, I always loved decorating for the holidays, but it is exhausting. Like, I acknowledge that it is a lot of work. And I think that's what I've recognized over the years is like, well, I was making it exhausting and trying to shove it all in and like three days. 

[00:40:29] This year, I'm like, Really? I'm KonMari-ing My holiday decorations like getting rid of stuff that's sort of broken or beat up, stuff that I don't enjoy anymore. I purchased some new holiday decorations from Target that I am just so excited about. But, you know, it's again, it's so much work to put all that up, and I want to enjoy it. That's why I love being an Episcopal. We get to stretch it out until the entire advent season all the way through the epiphany. And I just love soaking up. It is truly my absolute favorite time of year. I am a Christmas person from my head to my toes. I get it honestly. My mother decorates every room in her house and has every year since I've left. Like, There's never your mom's like, I'm not into it this year. Yeah, it is poppin at Lisa's house with all the decorations. I just I love it so much. It brings me so much joy. You know, my kids always want to watch Christmas movies and I'm like, No, if we watch them all year long, they're not special. Like, even though my stepfather will definitely let them watch Grinch in, like July, which I'm opposed to. But I just I love all the movies and the music and the decorations and, you know, filling my home with holiday cheer. I am that person I am like, full-on. Elf mode, buddy, the elf mode, the entire time. 

Beth [00:41:44] I would really love to hear from our listeners who do not celebrate Christmas. What you are sort of rules are around. When do I shift into how long does it last? What really kicks off the holiday season for me because I feel like I get very stuck in the Christian holidays, and so I'm super interested in if you celebrate Hanukkah, I want to know, like when you start thinking about that, if you celebrate Kwanzaa, if you don't celebrate any holidays or like winter solstice, just tell me all your traditions. 

Sarah [00:42:12] It's so funny. I don't even think about Christmas as a Christian holiday. Is that bad? I'm like, I pull out a nativity scene, I'm like, Oh right, baby Jesus comes too. I forgot. Santa just takes up so much room. I forgot baby Jesus was invited to the party as well. 

Beth [00:42:27] Well, thank you all so much for joining us as we consider time and what it means to all of us. We will be back here with you. Mark your calendars next Tuesday we would love to see you at our holiday huddle. There will be a link in the show notes for you to purchase your tickets. We would love to see you there and until then, have the best weekend available to you. 

[00:42:53] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.  

Alise Napp is our managing director.

Sarah [00:42:59] Megan Hart and Maggie Penton are our community engagement managers. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music. 

Beth [00:43:05] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers (Read their own names) [00:43:10] Martha Bronitsky, Linda Daniel, Ali Edwards, Janice Elliot, Sarah Greenup, Julie Haller, Helen Handley, Tiffany Hassler, Emily Holladay, Katie Johnson, Katina, Zoey, and Alice Kasling, Barry Kaufman, Molly Kohrs.

The Kriebs, Laurie LaDow, Lilly McClure, David McWilliams, Jared Minson, Emily Neesley, Danny Ozment, The Pentons, Tawni Peterson, Tracy Puthoff, Sarah Ralph, Jeremy Sequoia, Katy Stigers, Karin True, Onica Ulveling, Nick and Alysa Vilelli, Amy Whited.

Beth [00:43:48] Melinda Johnston, Ashley Thompson, Michelle Wood, Joshua Allen, Morgan McHugh, Nichole Berklas, Paula Bremer, and Tim Miller. 

[00:43:58] Next Tuesday, we would love to see you at our holiday huddle, they'll be link in the show note. There will be. There will be a link in the show nuts. Oh my god. 

Sarah [00:44:09] That's a good outtake. 

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